this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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Asklemmy
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Yeah so I've also seen a lot of people talk about this.
Many of us miss our niche communities. Most of the subs I subscribed to were niche or medium level.
there just aren't enough people on Lemmy for a ton of niche communities to stay active.
But I'm also okay with rarely-active niche communities.
One of my favorite reddit subs was "I'll be your guide". Only a handful of posts a year but good stuff. Basically videos or guides that were funny or absurd. I recall posting a video that was a legitimate guide on how to poop in the woods.
Yeah advice and help hobby/general communities are incredibly useful and so I have some thoughts about those.
When I first started using reddit I went to r/photography and asked some questions about an old film camera I had just got and was told I couldn't ask thoe questions there and had to go to the film camera sub. Which I found a little annoying. R/photography (over the 13 years I subscribed to it) mostly became places for only fans photographers to post naked women. Call it art. To the point that was a large portion of photographs posted.
But I couldn't ask about film. And novice and amateur photographs would just get downvoted with little to no comments.
I recall when I posted on r/sewing about a problem I was having with sewing vinyl, I Was told I needed to use the fabric/textiles sub. (Or something like that). You could only share things you made. Not ask for help. I thought that was so weird. (Also the textile sub was basically inactive so I got no help)
I think it's a situation that further division of communities into designated "advice/help" oriented subs/communities is only needed when there are a lot of people asking questions all the time and other content isn't getting seen. If that isn't happening, we don't need to separate people posting their projects and people asking for help.
I recently posted on a PC community here about needing some help with using streaming software but wasn't sure where to ask. People on that community helped me. I didn't need a dedicated community for that question. There is no such community on Lemmy. Probably because it's not needed.
That wouldn't have been acceptable on reddit and I certainly would have gotten told "don't post questions here, you need to use the sub for specific streaming services".
There is an Enshitification that happens when platforms become too big. Too popular. They will always then be used to market and manipulate . And it just spirals down. No solution.
There are tradeoffs with using smaller platforms. We get less spam here. Less bots. Less sock puppets (but these do exist here too). When you comment and get replies it's much more likely it's a real person and not a bot like reddit.
The conversations go slower. By that I mean if I see a post that's a day old and make a comment. Other people see it. I get replies. Unlike reddit. 1 day is old news. No one is looking at 1 day old posts on reddit.
I quite like this slower pace and feel like I'm having more genuine interactions instead of just lurking or making a comment no one is ever going to read. Which encourages me to be more active. And I'm sure other people feel similar.
This is getting long so I'll let you reply before I keep rambling forever.
Can you suggest some alternatives to reddit for writing or tech questions, like hobby places to go too
Facebook groups.
They got 10 groups for every topic. I use a lot for hobbies and games.
Some better than others.
Are they better than reddit ?
About the same for a lot of things though I think the game ones have been better. But I only use FB groups for two games. Both diverse players and non competitive games. No man's sky and animal crossing.
But generally people are friendly. And the communities are pretty active. Unless it's an old game or something not relevant anymore.
I use FB groups for stained glass hobby and 3d printing and had pretty good luck with both. Except I joined a women's 3d printing group and had some b.s drama and I left. But other 3d groups have been fine. Usually people asking for help.
*The women's group seemed like a rare occurrence. Basically they said my posts looked like I was promoting myself because they looked polished. I said. Yeah I have photography as a hobby. And a long lifetime of art hobbies so yeah my stuff is going to present well. But I'm not selling anything. I don't have a patreon. Etsy. All of my models I make free and accessible to anyone. I Just like my stuff to look nice because I know how to make it look nice. Not going to downgrade it because you think it's flashy or makes newbies feel bad. I am happy to give pointers on photographing models or the software I use or anything else. I'm not here to brag but just share with other people who I think will appreciate what I have.
I really tried to work with them. So they changed the rules banning posting completed projects or models. And told me it was cause of me. And said in their post about the change that an "unamed community member" was the cause.
I didn't even see the post. But the mod sent it to me. Just to make sure I knew I was the trouble maker.*
Idk who those awful women mods were. I got nothing nice to say. I answered troubleshooting questions all the time and helped people. Even made short videos showing people how to fix things.
I just instead help people in other 3d groups now. A lot of people join more than one anyway.
That's the tea on them. Don't join the women's and girls 3d printing FB group.
Anyway.
It's gonna be like reddit subs where it depends a lot on the mods. And your personal experience with said mods.
But unlike reddit, if you don't like a 3d printing sub you are out of luck. There was only a general one and the ones for specific brands. , but on fb there are 50 others. So you can find alternatives.